


Any Emotions

by orphan_account



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: M/M, Original Character(s), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 11:29:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3894676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s trapped in a room with a drug lord who has just finished snorting half a kilo of cocaine and is now shooting his gun up in the air, his thugs yelling as they run up the stairs, with explosives set to go off in a minute and take a quarter of the city with it. But that isn't what makes Harry realize he’s well and truly fucked.</p><p>“You alright there, Harry?” the voice in his ear asks.</p><p><i>Fucking Merlin,</i> he swears to himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Emotions

 

\---

 

There are certain moments in your life, axis points, if you could call them that, where you feel your life taking a turn toward a new, different direction. Sometimes it’s something you do, sometimes it’s something someone else does that manages to affect your life in some way. In the end, it all boils down to the fact you know everything isn’t going to be quite the same after.

As Harry stares up at the barrel of a Glock 41, unable to feel his extremities after having his wrists and ankles bound for approximately five hours to an old, rickety chair that looks like it survived the Cold War, he starts thinking about those axis points. He laughs, a hollow sound of blood and spit bubbling at the corners of his mouth.

He always thought himself above the schmaltzy predictability of having his life flash before his eyes.

 

\---

 

He’s five and standing by the window of his third floor bedroom and he watches as the chauffeur opens the boot of their moss green convertible and places worn, leather suitcases inside before shutting it with a loud thud that echoes throughout the driveway. He swings open the back passenger door for Harry’s mother, her back straight (”You’re not a troll, Harry.”), and her head held high as she slips on a set of large, black sunglasses over her eyes before stepping inside and closing the door without a single glance back.

He watches the convertible drive off, the gravel crunching beneath dark tires.

 

\---

 

He’s in his third year of university, and his girlfriend, Anne, has just broken up with him after finding out he had occasionally been sleeping with her best friend for four of the seven months they had been together. He had offered little protest when his mates dragged him to the club, despite having finals the next day. The music is loud, the lights are bright, and the air is thick and musty and he’s standing by the bar, waiting for their drinks, when some deep, ancient animal instinct in him tells him that someone’s watching him. So he looks up, and meets a pair of green eyes from across the room, followed by a rather dangerous smile. He thinks, _Well, why not?_

Later, at the dark alley behind the bar, his head light and a thrill of heady excitement running down his spine, he drops to his knees, hastily pulling at a worn leather belt and undoing a zipper. He feels the salty weight of a cock against his tongue and takes it as far as he can until dark curls tickle his nose. And a little more later when it’s his turn with his back against the rough cement wall, his hands clutching a thick head of hair, he thinks, with a gasp, _Well, this isn’t so bad._

 

\---

 

The third is when he’s staring at the barrel of his own gun in hand, pointing down at a pair of black beady eyes of a Yorkshire Terrier he had grown rather fond of, despite his better judgment, and there haven’t been a lot of times in his life when he’s filled with the complete, empty clarity of self loathing.

He pulls the trigger.

 

\---

 

There’s the rough punch of the gun to his face, the sound filling the chamber of the warehouse in the middle of Who the Bloody Fuck Knows, Ukraine. Blood drips down the one eye that he can open, but Harry sees his captor gesture sharp hand motions as he barks at the sentry by the doorway, who rushes out of the room. He turns back to Harry, gun pointed back to him.

In what could possibly be his last moments alive, Harry surprisingly thinks about that new tea salon that opened down the street from his flat and how he had always meant to go after passing by a few weeks back and seeing their carrot cake by their window display. The icing had looked lovely.

He thinks about how he should have given his mother a call last Christmas.

How he should have taken Mr. Pickles for a walk before he had left for this mission.

And... he thinks about Merlin. Which isn't at all surprising; he had begrudgingly come to terms on that matter a while back. He thinks about Merlin’s large hands carefully tinkering with some pocket-sized metal device that probably held lethal poison, or a bomb, or both. He thinks about his warm, deep voice in his ear; a calm, constant presence amidst a rain of bullets and screeching tires in Shanghai, Moscow, Berlin. He thinks about how a few weeks ago, at a pub during the rare moments where there was no drug lord that needed to be taken care of or human trafficking ring that needed to be dismantled, he should have told Merlin to put the pint down and ask him straight out, _‘There’s this new cafe near my flat. I've been meaning to go, their carrot cake looks lovely, but I've never really found the time or the occasion. Would you like to come? And maybe after we could pop by your place? And the night could end - or begin, depends on what side of the coin you choose, really - with me on my back and you fucking me halfway into your mattress. If you partake in that sort of thing. If not, the carrot cake would do just fine - '_

A shot clears out and his captor falls to the ground before him. Harry lifts his head and sees a man with a black mask and camo stepping through the door. Harry’s long memorized those set of shoulders, so the man hasn't even pulled his mask off before he lets out a loud, bordering manic, laugh.

“Galahad,” Merlin stares at him, his mask and rifle hanging at his side. “What’s so funny?”

Harry shakes his head, a bad decision after he feels his brain splitting in half a few moments after. “I was just wondering when my life started getting so predictable, when I've tried to be everything but.”

He winces as the pain in his head grows sharper. Merlin kneels before his chair and sets his gun down to undo the binds around Harry’s wrists and ankles. As the last comes undone, Harry’s body betrays him and he falls forward, a heavy weight in Merlin’s arms. He smells the remains of his cologne, and the sweat at the crook of Merlin’s neck. After the disaster of the past few days, he is willing to let himself indulge in this.

“Ta, Merlin,” he murmurs against Merlin’s skin.

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in a year! And my first fic on AO3 (although I've been reading here for quite a while). Lemme know what you think?


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